Intel reports

New defense intelligence assessment warns China nears critical military milestone

In recent years, top defense officials and internal Pentagon reports alike have cautioned about the rise of China as a military power, in large part due to its investments in high-end technologies like hypersonics and its development of indigenous capabilities like stealth fighters and aircraft carriers.

But it’s not a piece of hardware that’s most worrisome for American interests, according to a new assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Instead, it’s the worry that the Chinese service members behind each system have reached a critical point of confidence where they now feel that in combat, the People’s Liberation Army can match competitors.

In the long term, that could be bad news for America — and especially for Taiwan.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday ahead of the new DIA 2019 “China Military Power” report, a senior defense intelligence official called the idea that Beijing might soon trust its military capabilities well enough to invade Taiwan “the most concerning” conclusion from the report.

Intel reports


Intel official: Russia, China seek fast, futuristic weapons


The top U.S. defense intelligence official says Russia and China are seeking faster, futuristic weapons to challenge America's know-how of the technology.

Last week, Russia unveiled new strategic weapons that he claims can't be intercepted.

Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley told Congress on Tuesday that China is developing long-range cruise missiles — some capable of reaching supersonic speeds. He says China also is working on a bomber with a nuclear mission, which would give Beijing a nuclear triad of land, air and sea-based nuclear weapon systems.

Ashley says Russia is working on a hypersonic glide vehicle, which could fly 20 times faster than the speed of sound and avoid being detected by missile defense systems.

National intelligence director Dan Coats says the U.S. is in a race for technological superiority.

Intel reports

US Intelligence: Pakistan Expanding Nuclear Program, Drawing Closer to China

The US intelligence community has warned that they believe Pakistan is developing more advanced nuclear weapons, which could erode regional security. Washington also continues to claim Islamabad has been complicit in accommodating Islamic terrorist and militant groups.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers during a major hearing of US intelligence leaders before the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday that Pakistan was in the midst of expanding their arsenal of short-range tactical nuclear weapons, cruise missiles to be launched from planes and watercraft and longer-range intermediate ballistic missiles.

Pakistan is thought to have a modest (insofar as nuclear weapons go) arsenal of 160 warheads. That arsenal consists entirely of tactical and intermediate-range missiles, as Pakistan is not a global power and doesn't have any real need for ICBMs.

Intel reports

CIA spook says Kim Jong Un isn’t crazy

President Trump called him a “madman” — but a top CIA spook said Wednesday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was a “very rational actor” who didn’t want a war with the US despite his bellicose rhetoric.

“The last person who wants conflict on the [Korean Peninsula] is Kim Jong Un,” said Yong Suk Lee, deputy assistant director of the CIA’s Korea Mission Center — a special agency outfit that deals with the increased nuclear and ballistic missile threat from Pyongyang.

Lee’s comments came at the CIA Ethos & Profession of Intelligence conference in Washington, an annual event, the Washington Times reported.

Kim, 35, “wants what all authoritarian rulers want … to rule for a very long time and die peacefully in his own bed,” Lee said.

“We have a tendency in this country and everywhere else to kind of underestimate the conservatism that runs in these authoritarian regimes, and it’s probably the greatest circuit breaker in any kind of conflict,” he said.

All “bluster and rhetoric aside,” Kim has “no interest in going toe to toe” with the US military and its allies.

Intel reports

Exclusive: This Is the ISIS Intel the U.S. Military Dumbed Down

Senior intelligence officials at the U.S. military’s Central Command demanded significant alterations to analysts’ reports that questioned whether airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State widely known as ISIS were damaging the group’s finances and its ability to launch attacks. But reports that showed the group being weakened by the U.S.-led air campaign received comparatively little scrutiny, The Daily Beast has learned.

Senior CENTCOM intelligence officials who reviewed the critical reports sent them back to the analysts and ordered them to write new versions that included more footnotes and details to support their assessments, according to two officials familiar with a complaint levied by more than 50 analysts about intelligence manipulation by CENTCOM higher-ups.